Drugs and go-carts
Today I learned that Andretti is way more awesome than Malibu Grand Prix. They both have goofy-looking go-carts driven by overpowered lawnmower engines, they both have goofy, meaningless arcade games, but Andretti wins for two simple reasons: they let everyone on the track at the same time, making it more like what one would expect in a race, and they have a bar. It was a pretty crappy bar, since when we were there all they had left on tap was Budweiser and Amber Bock, and they even ran out of Budweiser before we left, and though the cute girl tending the bar was pretty hot, she was also fairly bad at it and fairly married, unofficially permitting drinking and driving go-carts has to count for something.
This past week has been exciting. Autovin finally went through the process of hiring me full time after talking about it for several months, which means that I no longer have to fudge hours on timesheets, instead being able to take on the same apathy towards time held by the rest of the IT department. It also means that I get some kind of retirement fund and someone else paying for health insurance and all that, too. One of the somewhat unexpected aspects of the hiring process, though, was the drug test. I had no reason to worry about it, but for whatever I always thought of pissing in a cup as something that happened to other people. The whole process was a little weird to me. I understand that it’s a careful balance between privacy and preventing me from tampering with my urine, but certain aspects of the process, like having to wash my hands beforehand in full view of the nurse and having to wait for the sample to be signed and sealed before finishing up and flushing, struck me at the time as a bit needlessly authoritarian. The company president, apparently remembering his own college days, offered to delay this aspect of the hiring process for a couple of weeks if necessary, and mentioned drinking pickle juice as a way to dodge the bullet after I jokingly mentioned that I’d drink a bunch of cranberry juice when I got home. I can’t imagine that consuming brine is any more effective than other liquids, so how did anyone come up with that? Is this one of those things where someone thought that since it’s disgusting it must be doing something? Whatever the source, eww.